Studying, studying, studying...

    

I never studied in high school. Many of the classes I took did not interest me. In fact, the only classes in which I really enjoyed the content of were band, chorus, and English. There were other classes I enjoyed because the teachers were really cool, even though I did like the subject area- like MATH! I was horrible at math, but class was fun because the teacher was fun.

I did "okay" grade wise in high school, but I could have done so much better had I actually cared about my grades. My undergrad years at IUP were a different story. I studied all the time! Even if it was a non music class, I was still motivated because I knew my grades would affect whether I got a job or not. I managed to graduate from IUP with not only a B.S. in Music Education, but a 3.6 GPA.

I put off graduate school for as long as possible, but my enrollment was inevitable. In PA, teachers need 24 continuing education credits before the end of their 6th year of teaching. Many master's programs in education are only 30 credits, so like most educators, I figured it would be silly to stop at 24 credits and just go for the master's. Not only would I have a degree, but I'd get a bump up on the pay scale! I took my time, and over the course of a little over 2 years, I earned a Master's in Educational Development and Strategies from Wilkes University- this time with a 4.0 GPA!

The content in my master's degree classes were not hard (with the exception of the school law class), but it was extremely time consuming. There were a lot of projects, lesson plans, unit plans, test designing, and of course PAPERS. Luckily I was able to take a lot of my classes in the summer, when I had more time to focus.

Now I'm studying again for my personal training certification. It's hard. There is SO MUCH INFORMATION. I am only on my fourth week of studying and there are already topics I have read about over and over again and I still don't understand them. I'm probably only 15% through the materials and I still cannot fathom how I am going to be able to retain all of this information well enough to pass a test. (The good news is it's a multiple choice test, so it's not like I will have to write out definitions or compose essays.)

Also, since school has started, it's hard to focus on studying. After work and piano lessons, I have no brain cells left to read and retain information. I have been trying to get a lot of reading done on the weekends, so that during the week I can write and flip through my flash cards when I have free time. One study strategy that is really saving me time is reading my notes into pod casts and listening to them while I workout. That way, I automatically get to "study" for about an hour each day. If I hadn't thought of the podcast idea, I'd be drowning by now!

A lot of the content I'm working on right now is anatomy related. I need to know how all the systems of the body work, the joints and their movements, and many, many, many muscles and their functions. Some of the terms could be in another language to me, that's how foreign they are.

It's funny, I took anatomy in high school pretty much because I thought it would be easier than chemistry. The teacher treated it like a self taught college course. He rarely ever lectured, it was just up to us to read and understand the content. We also had a ton of really difficult quizzes where we would need to memorize the origin, insertion, and action for every  muscle in the body. It was terrible. I was so overwhelmed and so uninterested and unmotivated that I didn't even try. I'm pretty sure I squeaked by with a low C or high D in that course.

Fifteen years later, here I am studying anatomy again! This time, I am much more motivated because the content actually means something to me. But it's still hard.


I know all of this time spent studying will be worth it, so I don't know what the point of this blog post is. To whine and complain? Probably!


Thank for listening to me vent! I know I just need to suck it up!